NRL: The ones that got away
Trevor McKewen signed Ivan Cleary as a player and writes of the mixed feelings he'll experience as a Warriors fan on Sunday: PLUS: Loads of goodness in The Week That Was and the Weekend That Will Be.
When I first started thinking seriously about sports journalism as a career in the late-80s, Trevor McKewen was the most prolific byline in the industry. As the sports editor of the big-selling Sunday News, McKewen pumped out lead after lead and angle after angle for the tabloid. Rugby and cricket were big rounds but having spent his formative years on the Gold Coast it was league (and surfing) that was closest to his heart.
After helping establish the Sunday Star-Times as its founding sports editor, McKewen left for Sydney to work as the media manager for Murdoch’s Super League, the disruptor that changed professional sport in Australia in a way not seen since Packer’s foray into cricket. This was about the time I was finally doing something about my sports writing dream and I would end up being the league reporter for Sunday News when McKewen was appointed CEO of the struggling Warriors in 1998. Our paths diverged again as I left for my OE, but we have intersected since.
I was a sports reporter at the SS-T in 2004 when McKewen was appointed director of sport, though we don’t tend to talk about that as I soon left to join the start-up Herald on Sunday. A decade later, he was back in charge in happier circumstances, this time as NZME’s head of sport where I was sports editor-at-large.
McKewen is now a consultant for Sky TV. More importantly for the purposes of this piece, he is still a leaguie at heart. Ahead of Sunday’s blockbuster final between Penrith and Souths, McKewen is the perfect person to remind us just what the club missed out on when the coach and his family left Auckland for Sydney. Enjoy.
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Warriors supporters tuning into the NRL grand final on Sunday can be excused for thinking what might have been.
Sydney’s Penrith Panthers were mocked and derided for years as the “Chocolate Soldiers” – a clever nod and wink to their cocoa-coloured strip from back in the day before clubs decided they needed to wear 419 differently designed jerseys a season. The Panthers had no claws and inevitably folded under pressure in any game of consequence.
No more. The ice might have been broken in 1990 when the club won its first premiership, inspired by indomitable journeyman Royce Simmons, mercurial halfback Greg ‘Brandy’ Alexander, volcanic Mark Geyer and a young colt named Brad Fittler. But there were missteps after, another title in 2003 with Kiwis second rowers Tony Puletua and Joe Galuvao to the fore, more missteps and it is only now that the club is seemingly established as a perennial powerhouse.
Father-and-son Ivan and Nathan Cleary are a major reason why.
Regardless of whether they tip over Wayne Bennett’s equally inspiring South Sydney Rabbitohs in the 2021 decider, the Panthers look here to stay as an NRL juggernaut. Their junior nursery in the west of Sydney is the envy of all other clubs and will ensure they draw on a huge ongoing reservoir of talent.
But add in an astute coach who can rub shoulders with the best in the game in understanding the emotional intelligence of his players, and a 23-year-old captain who plays like a grizzled double-decade veteran with a brain faster than Google, and you have a potent mix set to ensure Penrith continue to challenge Melbourne and the Roosters at the most dominant club in the game.
If you’re a Warriors fan, there will be an inescapable feeling of regret as you watch Cleary senior pull the levers from the Suncorp Stadium coaching box while Cleary junior pushes his team-mates around the park like a chess Grand Master.
The Clearys are the ones that got away.
Hugh McGahan and I signed Ivan to the Warriors as a player in late 1999 at the urging of coach Mark Graham who had run out of patience with Matthew Ridge and released the Kiwis fullback from the final year of his contract.
‘Sharko’ wanted a goalkicking outside back and a leader to replace the irascible Ridge. Ivan, in the final year of his contract with the Sydney City Roosters, became our target.
Cleary was no blistering centre. In fact, there was very little flash to his game. But he was massively dependable, he could also play fullback, and exactly what Graham needed in a young side flush with emerging but green Kiwi talent including midfield partner Clinton Toopi, wingers Francis Meli and Henry Fa’afili and the likes of Ali Lauit’iti and Monty Betham in the forward pack.
Ivan went on to score 439 points in 53 matches for the Warriors, winding up his playing career under Daniel Anderson in the 2002 grand final loss to the Roosters, a decade after making his first-class debut for Manly, ironically as a fullback understudy to Ridge.
He played two seasons for Graham’s former club the North Sydney Bears in 1993 and ’94, before a four-year stint with the Roosters where he accumulated 722 points.
Kevin Campion rightly deserves much credit for the steel he built in the Warriors in the early noughties, but it was Cleary who methodically built the confidence of his young backline, in particular Toopi who became arguably the best centre the Warriors have had.
Hugh, the Warriors football manager at the time, and I initially doubted we could sway Ivan to cross the Tasman. Born and raised on Sydney’s northern beaches, it looked a big ask.
We decided we needed to make he and wife Rebecca believe Auckland was actually an attractive city and perfect to raise a young family, including a two-year-old son named Nathan. After all, Ivan’s sole impression of Auckland had been formed by return bus trips from the airport to industrial Penrose.
We took husband and wife to the St Heliers waterside restaurant now known as Moretons and Hugh did the consummate sell on why the Warriors were a challenge Ivan couldn’t turn down.
Unbelievably, he signed (and, while my memory is hazy, I’m almost certain they bought in the St Heliers area too).
His first season provided plenty of reasons for thinking it was the dumbest decision of his life. With co-owners Graham Lowe and Malcolm Boyle butting heads with the Tainui owners, a closed chequebook when it came to signing other talent and Stacey Jones sidelined with a broken arm, it was a brutal season of under-performance.
It was also, however, an insight into Ivan’s mind. Behind that often expressionless façade was a league brain the size of a small planet. There was also an X-factor – an ability to understand and mentor young players, particularly Polynesian players.
That was a rare attribute, especially among Aussie imports. I am convinced Cleary’s playing years at the Warriors was invaluable preparation for the coaching career to come. Warriors’ folklore has it that Daniel Anderson lost the dressing room in the latter stages of his tenure after he tore strips off Stacey Jones in front of the team at halftime in a key match. It was an eruption that soured the Polynesian contingent towards Anderson and he never recovered the confidence that shattered among the playing group.
It was a lesson the more even-tempered Cleary would have already learned. It’s also no coincidence that Penrith play with a certain joie de vivre. The Panthers are the most popular club in Sydney among kids; brimful of playful personalities not stymied by the NRL’s regimented fun police.
Ivan understands it takes many parts and personalities to mould a champion team. That, and an encyclopaedic knowledge of the game aligned with a nerveless demeanour, makes him a rare coaching talent.
Then there’s the son.
Nathan was a toddler when the Clearys arrived in Auckland. I don’t recall seeing him at Mt Smart back then but in the following years he was a regular fixture at Warriors training, retrieving errant balls and sitting obediently on the touchline watching.
Ivan’s sponge-like brain was clearly passed on. Young Nathan took it all in and then some. Already he is a superior player to his father, which I am sure Ivan wouldn’t mind admitting. Unusually for wunderkind rookie halfbacks breaking into the NRL, Nathan was anything but a flash-and-dash merchant.
Critics marvelled at his poise under pressure. In his 2018 debut season he was calmly directing seasoned veterans 10 to 15 years his senior around the field and redefining the pressure game with a kicking game from another dimension.
He has only got better. Now captain of the Panthers and entrenched as the NSW State of Origin halfback, the league world is seemingly Nathan’s oyster.
And therein lies the rub for Warriors fans.
After two years back in Sydney where he coached the Roosters to a lower-grade premiership, Ivan was wooed back to Mt Smart – this time as coach.
There were a couple of lean seasons in his tenure (10th out of 15 teams in his first season and 14th out of 16 teams in 2009), but under Cleary, the Warriors made the finals four out of six seasons – what would we give for consistency like that right now! Although it was somewhat overshadowed by the Rugby World Cup on home shores, in 2011 he guided the club to its second grand final, losing the decider to Manly.
That same year, a power struggle at the club saw Cleary let go in the face of an offer from Penrith. It’s said Ivan would have stayed had the Warriors extended his contract to the same length Penrith was offering. They didn’t – and the chance to secure a career coach in the vein of Wayne Bennett and the Broncos and Craig Bellamy and the Melbourne Storm was lost.
With it went Nathan, who could have become a lifetime Warrior (and potentially the Kiwis halfback).
Yes, Ivan struggled in his first two seasons at the Panthers and, after falling out with Phil Gould, left for a forgettable tenure at the Wests Tigers. Penrith had seen something, however, and when Gould was sidelined the Panthers again moved on their man, re-signing him in 2019.
Nathan had made his first-grade debut the year before.
Now reunited, father and son have now taken the Panthers to two grand final appearances in three seasons, including back-to-back efforts. They say you have to lose a grand final to know how to win one. Ivan has lost two as a player and two as a coach. Nathan has lost one.
The wily Bennett is a formidable opponent and Souths will have plenty of Kiwi backers hoping for another Benji Marshall fairytale.
But my heart is with the Panthers – even if I can’t help but wonder what might have been if father and son had stayed at the Warriors.
- Trevor McKewen
NB. There is still some doubt as to whether the grand final will proceed as scheduled at Suncorp Stadium on Sunday night as Queensland deals with an outbreak of the Covid-19 Delta variant. Australian league boss Peter V’Landys has admitted there are contingencies in place if fans cannot attend, including postponing the final.
THE WEEK THAT WAS
It is the sweet science of boxing in the spotlight this week for all the right and very wrong reasons. While Ukraine’s Oleksandr Usyk (above) stunned the world with his manhandling of Anthony Joshua to win three of the Big Four boxing belts - only the WBC belt held by Tyson Fury eludes him - a very different story was playing out in the amateur game. One of the Olympics worst-kept secrets has been confirmed in a report authored by Professor Richard McLaren: boxing at the Games is a scandalous, rigged farce. Up to 11 bouts at Rio 2016 were under suspicion with the rot going to the top of AIBA, amateur boxing’s governing body. This will come as no great surprise to boxing aficionados who have long been left slackjawed by the judging at the Olympics. The worst case in Rio was the bantamweight quarter-final “defeat” of Ireland’s Michael Conlan at the hands of Russian Vladimir Nikitin. Conlan destroyed the Russian, clearly winning all three rounds, but somehow found himself behind on the cards.
It all makes the cocaine scandal around the NRL a bit small beer, but nevertheless images of Melbourne Storm players partying in a room with suspicious white powder on the table, and Warriors star Reece Walsh being arrested in possession of cocaine is not the sort of headlines the sport needs in grand final week.
The perennial success of Spanish footballing giants Real Madrid and Barcelona is often accompanied by as much resentment as admiration, so their respective Champions League defeats this week were met with uncommon glee. Barcelona were defeated soundly by two-time European Cup winner Benfica, heaping the pressure on manager Ronald Koeman, but it was Real’s 1-2 loss to tiny Moldovan club Sheriff Tiraspol that was more tectonic. It seems, unfortunately, that the fairy tale is not quite as it seems. This thread from journalist Slava Malamud is what you young folks might call 🔥🔥.
If he is not Mankad-ing batters or “faking” injuries, cricket’s heel Ravi Ashwin is taking overthrows after the ball has deflected off his partner. It is ordinary behaviour but there is no equivalence to a certain one-day international in 2019 that we must never speak of. On that occasion that in my mind still never really happened, Ben Stokes did not attempt to run off the overthrows and had no choice but to take the runs as the ball reached the boundary.
THE WEEKEND THAT WILL BE
The last time All Blacks and Springboks met in a rugby match was all of a few days ago. Neither side was particularly happy when the final whistle went on their 100th test. South Africa because they lost; New Zealand because everybody thought they were rubbish. In that case, both sides get a shot at redemption in the 101st clash between the two rugby giants. Forget the early match between Argentina and the Wallabies - the Pumas are shot and just want out of there. Some of them briefly escaped Queensland. Can’t blame them.
New Zealand v South Africa, Cbus Super Stadium, tomorrow 11.05pm, Sky Sport 1
The NRL season (hopefully) reaches a climax at the magnificent Suncorp Stadium on Sunday night. Will Benji Marshall leave the sport with a fairytale finish? Will the Clearys combine for a title? Will Wayne Bennett win his eighth championship in what seems like his 73rd year in charge of a team? Will Penrith score more than 10 points? All this and more to be revealed.
Penrith v South Sydney, Suncorp Stadium, Sunday 9.30pm, Sky Sport 4
Between them, Liverpool and Manchester City have cleaned up all the major trophies available to English clubs in the past few years so any clash between the Lancashire giants in one worth setting your alarm for. Led by the two most charismatic managers in club football in Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp (pictured above), this match could provider a pointer for the rest of the season.
Liverpool v Manchester City, Anfield, Monday 4.20am, Spark Sport
The greatest one-day cycling race in the world takes place on Sunday night. I’ll be watching the league then flicking over to watch the Paris-Roubaix, one of five “monument” races on the calendar and, with sections of narrow cobblestone paths, the most heroic. Usually raced in April and often subjected to strong winds and driving rain, Paris-Roubaix is known as the “Hell of the North”. Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel and Belgian Wout van Aert will start favourites, but keep an eye out for Slovakian Peter Sagan, a threat in any classic he enters.
Paris-Roubaix, starts Sunday 10pm, Sky Sport 9
Everybody is fizzing for Tom Brady’s return to Foxboro, this time as the leader of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but their clash with the struggling New England Patriots might be the “occasion” of the round, but it’s far from the best match. The Los Angeles Rams switched quarterbacks in the offseason with the Detroit Lions - hello Matthew Stafford, goodbye Jared Goff - intentionally getting older at the position with the aim of winning a Super Bowl early next year. The Arizona Cardinals drafted their “quarterback of the future” in 2019, taking Kyler Murray with the No 1 pick. Both teams will be thrilled with how it is panning out. They meet in an NFC West clash this weekend unbeaten at 3-0.
LA Rams v Arizona Cardinals, SoFi Stadium, Monday 9.05am, Spark Sport
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